


The Floating Menagerie

by King_Scrungo



Series: Ineffable Companion [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Torchwood
Genre: ADD (Attention Deficit Demon), Alternate Universe (literally), Crossover, Crowley can't open doors, Crowley is stupid, Falling from great heights, Fantasy, Gen, Light Angst, Like, Lots of running actually, Minor Original Character(s), Outer Space, Random button pushing, Running down long dark hallways (as all companions should), Science Fiction, Sonic Screwdriver, Spaceships, TARDIS - Freeform, The Void, Wings!, excessive quantities of running, maybe too much running, time stopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2020-08-20 09:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20225464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/King_Scrungo/pseuds/King_Scrungo
Summary: Following a failed attempt to return to his own universe, Crowley agrees to be helped by The Doctor. However, things start to go wrong when the TARDIS accidentally drifts into an alien space zoo.





	1. The Doctor and The Demon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a harrowing encounter involving The Doctor and some lizard men, Crowley tries to return to his own universe via everyone's favorite Welsh inter-dimensional rift.

If Crowley hadn't been a supernatural celestial entity from Hell, he probably would have died about twenty separate times in the past half hour with The Doctor. Whether they were evading crazy lizard people, narrowly avoiding elaborate traps, or navigating an endless maze of tunnels, Crowley's survival seemed to depend solely on his ability to run. Any human would have run out of breath long ago. Whatever alien species The Doctor was must've had some killer lungs.

They were in the home stretch. With a pack of enraged scaley monsters right on their tails, Crowley and The Doctor rounded a corner to see the welcome sight of the box-ship TARDIS at the end of a short corridor. Running with renewed vigor at the sight of their destination, Crowley bolted onward. He barely managed to slow himself down in time to avoid crashing headlong into the ship. Frantically, he pushed on the doors only to find they were locked.

Arriving moments later, The Doctor practically threw Crowley aside to get to the TARDIS doors. After less than a second of fumbling with the key, the doors swung open and the two of them stumbled inside with no time to spare. The doors slammed shut behind them just as their pursuers reached them. From inside the ship, Crowley could hear the resonating sounds of them pounding on the wooden exterior of the box. The Doctor wasted no time activating the console and flying the ship away.

As soon as he heard the whirring rush of the ship dematerializing, Crowley paused to catch his breath (figuratively, of course, as the demon didn't really have any breath to catch in the first place). There was not one moment in his entire six-thousand-year life in which he could remember running like that. The thing about being a demon in an alternate dimension where Heaven and Hell are absent was that Crowley had absolutely no clue what would happen if he were to be discorperated. Maybe he would end up back on the other side of the rift. Maybe he would go to whatever this dimension's version of Hell was. Maybe he would just disappear entirely. None of those options sounded particularly favorable to Crowley, meaning that for the first time in his entire life, death was actually something for him to be afraid of. This was a new and completely incomprehensible feeling for him.

"Alright," Crowley breathed, "you put the stupid algae back in the stupid underground -- thingy. Make the box go to Earth now."

"We actually were just on Earth, in a subterranean Silurian habitat!" Clarified The Doctor, seemingly forgetting to be worried from the intense chase they were in moments earlier as he launched into an explanation, "their race inhabited the Earth over four-hundred million years ago. But then the--"

"Do I look like I care? Earth. Now. Let's go," Crowley interrupted impatiently. He hadn't asked to be dragged along on this death-defying underground algae quest and he didn't appreciate being thrown - without any warning - into a cavern full of lizard men. What bothered him the most about the situation, though, was how nonchalant The Doctor acted about it, like he didn't care in the slightest that he had basically kidnapped Crowley. Maybe it had been fun at first, flying through in a whimsical police box, but now Crowley was starting to have some serious doubts about this Doctor character.

With a shrug, The Doctor threw a lever and the TARDIS grew silent. Materialization seemed to be much smoother than outright flying, seeing as the ship barely shook when it landed. Without a word, Crowley pushed the doors open and stepped outside. He took a couple of steps forward and observed his surroundings.

They had landed in what was recognizably London. From what he could see, this world looked very similar to the one he had come through. Remembering something The Doctor had said, Crowley turned back to see him gently closing the TARDIS doors behind them.

"Four-hundred million years ago?" Said Crowley. The Doctor stayed by the ship, watching Crowley from a few paces back.

"Yep," The Doctor began, "they lived with the dinosaurs. Love a good dinosaur. But they all went underground long before humans came around. Actually--"

"Dinosaurs," Crowley echoed, almost laughing, "how interesting." This man seemed to know what he was talking about, and by the fact that The Doctor had a time-machine, Crowley supposed that this planet must be a whole lot older than his own.

"What are you doing on Earth?" The Doctor asked suddenly.

"I -- live here?" Crowley tried, confused, "and you're the one who took me here."

"You said you're from Earth - you said you were human. That doesn't add up."

"Oh, I never said I was human," Crowley shook his head slightly. 

"What are you, then?" Inquired The Doctor with a note of curiosity.

"Not quite sure these days," Crowley sighed and shrugged, "well, so long."

With that, Crowley walked off. He had made only a handful of steps when The Doctor called after him, "where are you going?"

Without turning back, Crowley answered simply, "Cardiff."

"Cardiff?" That seemed to pique The Doctor's interest.

"That's what I said, isn't it?" Crowley slowed down a little to turn around.

"What's in Cardiff?"

"Home, I suppose," Crowley took another couple of steps and walked off again. After a very short amount of time in this dimension, he figured he was about ready to go back. A near-death experience triumphed over any quarrels he had with Aziraphale. He just wanted to be home.

"You can't go back through the rift," The Doctor called after him.

Crowley stopped dead in his tracks and turned to stare at The Doctor. What did he know about the rift?

"Aha!" The Doctor exclaimed, his face lighting up, "I knew it - you did come through the rift! Is that why you were in space?"

"What do you mean I 'can't go back?'" Crowley had already assumed that the rift was a one-way trip, judging by what he'd heard about it. Still, this came as a shock to him somehow. When he had gone through the rift, he didn't care if he came back. But that was almost an hour ago, and he was beginning to regret that decision. What if he was trapped here forever?

"It- it only brings stuff here, that's why there's a huge alien problem in Wales," The Doctor looked a little nervous.

"I'll see about that," Crowley turned and walked away at a steady pace.

"Are you going to walk to Cardiff?" The Doctor caught up to Crowley.

"Yep."

"I could give you a lift, if you'd like."

Saying nothing, Crowley sped up. That was an awfully nice offer on The Doctor's part and Crowley didn't deal with 'nice.' The Doctor stopped as Crowley raced onward. After a moment, the demon heard the echoing sound of the TARDIS disappearing.

As he race-walked from London to Wales, Crowley's mind raced for the entire 150-mile trek. He wasn't fazed by the lizard creatures or the spaceships or the bigger on the inside. No, the things that bothered him were the supposed dinosaurs, the idea of being trapped in this universe forever, and The Doctor himself. Sure Crowley wasn't particularly fond of Hell, but the lack of familiar divinity in this world was somehow worse. Without anything to distract him from it, he felt empty for the whole walk.

The non-stop walk took nearly an entire day. As he arrived in Cardiff, Crowley began to feel a similar sense of universal wrongness as he had when he first came through the rift. This time, however, it seemed to be pushing him away from the city instead of drawing him in. Ignoring this, he pressed on towards the channel where he remembered being taken by the rift before.

With every movement towards the channel, the resistance grew stronger. It felt like trying to push two magnets together on the same pole. Crowley slowed his pace as he neared the water, feeling mentally fatigued. Once again, he walked straight into the sea. Trudging along the rocky ocean floor, he could tell that he was nearing the rift. Its presence was strong and it became more and more unbearable to approach it. Something was resonating annoyingly in his head as the light from the world above gradually faded. His mind filled with static. Forcing his way forward, Crowley continued on until he found himself running in place on the seafloor, held back by the force of the nearby rift. But he couldn't give up. Pushing harder, he managed to gain a couple of steps forward. Fuzzy, black spots danced in the corners of his vision but he kept forging on. Things grew very hazy and Crowley tried to yell to himself in order to stay awake. Nothing but streams bubbles came from his mouth as he lurched forward bit by bit towards the rift. His head felt like it was going to explode under the pressure from the rift. He knew this meant he had to be close. Taking one more step, he could feel the dimensional anomaly in his grasp.

Then, for what couldn't have been less than a second, Crowley's world filled with a warm, welcoming darkness and he lost consciousness. Moments later, he found himself floating on the seafloor in the shallow ocean, near the shore.

Going back through the rift really had been impossible. That notion frustrated Crowley beyond all belief. Gloomily, the demon stayed at the bottom of the water to brood in his own anger at the rift. How /dare/ it defy him like this? To mock him further, the rift still seemed to be pushing him back under the water. Currents were pulling him gently in every direction, but the rift was the only thing that pushed. That force easily triumphed over the currents and it wasn't long before Crowley was shoved to the edge of the water.

Crowley stood up slowly and climbed out of the channel with a scowl, much to the astonishment of a flock of seagulls roosting on the rocky beach. He noticed that his sunglasses had floated away at some point during the attempt to reach the rift. Taking a deep breath, he tried to find a moment of peace when he heard a familiar voice from a few paces down the shore.

"No luck?" Asked The Doctor in an almost mockingly calm tone.

"Shut up," Crowley whipped around to look at The Doctor, flashing him the meanest stare he could muster while also being soaking wet.

On the rocky shore in front of Crowley, The Doctor leaned casually against the TARDIS. He wore a smug look on his face that kind of made Crowley want to punch him.

"Where're you trying to get to?" The Doctor asked, returning Crowley's glare with a patient smile. The demon in question did not answer; he just stared as if he were trying to bore holes in The Doctor's skull with his bright, snakelike eyes. When there was no response, The Doctor continued in a level voice, "I might know it. I could help you."

"Can your box go through the rift?" Crowley raised an eyebrow, blinking for the first time in a while.

"No -- well, it -- no, it couldn't. But the TARDIS can go anywhere in the universe. Wherever you're from, wherever you're trying to go, I could take you there."

"Yeah, well, from what I've heard, I'm from outside the universe. And I already told you what, three times now?" Crowley frowned and said, slowly and forcefully, "I'm from Earth."

The Doctor's eyes widened as if he'd just realized something incredibly important. He smacked himself on the forehead with one hand and gave Crowley a look of astonishment. "A parallel reality! Of course! That's how you got through the rift in the first place, but once you were here--!" The Doctor started pacing in a circle in front of the TARDIS as he rambled, "it's a one-way fracture in time and space! A temporal black hole, if you will, bridging the gap between two or more dimensions... a tear in the fabric of /two universes/, spanning out through space - and most likely time as well - in both parallels! That's where the all the dimensional energy in Cardiff comes from: bleeding through from your dimension, and spreading somewhat of a -- dislocating presence in a- in a splay, or somewhat of a spiral - no, not a spiral, more of... an explosion, I suppose, like- like- like tendrils, spreading across the universe, sucking in the alien and paranormal. Not paranormal like ghosts, or demons, but like--! you know--! Space! It only makes sense. How did I not connect this before‽"

Following a brief pause for dumbfounded staring, Crowley blinked a couple of times. He really, honestly had no clue how to respond to that. "You finished, mate?" Was all he ended up saying.

"I understand now," said The Doctor excitedly, "I think I can get you back!"

This interested Crowley. "Seriously?"

"I can use readings from rift to modify the TARDIS so it can pass through the rift to your universe. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe?"

"Good enough for me," Crowley pushed past The Doctor and stepped back into the TARDIS. Although he wasn't particularly fond of The Doctor, this box-ship was most likely the best chance he had at getting back to his own dimension. In the heat of the moment, Crowley had gone through the rift in hopes of finding something new and far away. But this place was kind of lame. It was exactly like his Earth, but strangely more kill-y.

Following Crowley inside, The Doctor closed the door and promptly ran over to the console. He tapped some buttons on the screen in no discernable order, then threw the main lever and the ship flew off with a shudder.

"I'm just taking us into orbit," explained The Doctor, "in case something blows up."

"Is that a possibility?" Crowley walked up to the console.

"It's a precaution. Hey--! Don't touch anything" The Doctor tried to wave Crowley away from the controls.

"Theoretically, what would happen if I were to say, press this big red button here?" Crowley reached a hand towards the button, purely out of spite because The Doctor told him not to touch anything.

"Oh, that one doesn't really do anything. Don't touch it, though, it just- wait--!"

By saying the button 'doesn't really do anything,' The Doctor had practically given Crowley permission to press it. Obviously, he pressed the button. Nothing happened.

"See?" Crowley leaned one hand on the console, "everything is fine."

Everything continued to be fine for approximately one additional second before the lights illuminating the control room flickered one by one. Individually, they all shut off until they had all blinked out and the room was filled with nothing but almost complete darkness and the sound of The Doctor breathing a heavy sigh. The only light in the room was coming from the windows on the doors. It was just enough for Crowley to see the outline of the things around him, but only barely.

"Whoops," Crowley said unapologetically.

"You- you drained the power-- all the power-- for the whole ship," The Doctor stammered in bewilderment, uselessly tapping some of the controls, "how did you manage that?"

"I just hit the button," Crowley shrugged.

"For future reference, then, don't touch anything in my TARDIS. At all. Ever. Especially when I /specifically/ tell you not to."

"What if I touch it again and it comes back?"

"That's not how it works."

Yeah, but do you really know what works in this situation? I mean, you don't know how it happened, right? So how do you know that me touching it again won't fix it?" Crowley reasoned. Then, without waiting for a response, he pushed the button again and waiting. This time, nothing actually happened. "Alright, it was worth a shot."

"The power will come back on its own," said The Doctor with a hint of annoyance at Crowley's antics, "long as we stay within sight of the sun, the solar generators should be able to power her back up... eventually."

"Great. Then you'll take me back through the... thingy?"

"Hopefully. I've never actually done anything like that before. At least, not intentionally," The Doctor looked around in the darkness, "what's your side of the rift like?"

"Oh, it's pretty much the same. Except, I guess, there's this place called Hell," remarked Crowley casually, "is that a thing here?"

"Actual Hell?" The Doctor questioned, sounding more intrigued than concerned.

"It's no big deal, really."

"Is that where you're from? Hell?"

"No - I just-- sort of... work there," Crowley shook his head before adding quickly, "where are you from?"

"I'm sorry, Hell? Like the human story?"

"It's nothing. I shouldn't have brought it up." Crowley said dismissively.

"There a Heaven, too?"

"Possibly. Maybe I'll tell you all about it if you tell me about your planet," Crowley had absolutely no intention of elaborating any further, but he was curious about where The Doctor was from. And The Doctor was clearly interested in Crowley's universe, so he could hopefully use that information as leverage.

The Doctor opened his mouth as if to say something, then stopped himself. For a handful of seconds, he stared into space contemplatively. Taking a deep breath, he muttered in a low, careful tone, "it was called Gallifrey."

"Gallifrey, right. Yeah, I remember that one. Three suns, funky trees... that's it, right?"

Cautiously, The Doctor lifted his gaze to look at Crowley, his eyes filled with a sadness that the demon didn't quite understand. In almost a whisper, The Doctor confirmed, "that's it. How d'you...?"

"The gang and I built that one back in the beginning. Didn't know it was inhabitable, though. Wild. How's old Gallifrey doing these days?" Crowley put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the little railing on the side of the console.

"There was a war, a long time ago," began The Doctor solemnly, "it-- hold on, you what? Did you say--?" Before he could finish the question, he was interrupted by a deafening mechanical groan coming from everywhere at once.

The TARDIS shook once, nearly knocking Crowley right off his feet. A bright blue glow surrounded The Doctor and the demon. The sense of lightheadedness momentarily absorbed Crowley. Then, in an instant, they both disappeared, leaving the console room as dark and empty as the space around it.


	2. To Punch Glass Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped on an alien spaceship, Crowley tries and fails to puzzle out an escape plan.

The next thing Crowley knew, he was in a very cramped space. It reminded him of a coffin, but less comfortable. A fuzzy, discombobulating feeling clouded his senses as he tried to puzzle out what had just happened. One moment he had been on the TARDIS, the next he wasn't. It must've been some sort of teleportation - but why? There was barely enough space for him to move his head as he attempted to gather his bearings. A tube made of light blue glass surrounded Crowley on all sides, trapping him in one spot like a spider under a cup.

Looking around, he noticed that he was in a huge room that was filled with rows upon rows of glass tubes much like the one he was in. Crowley was surrounded by a whole variety of different colors and sizes of cylinders. Upon closer inspection, he realized that many of them contained a living being. He could only make out the basic details of the things closest to him, everything else shrouded by the semi-opaque glass in front of him. Though the vast majority of what he could see were beast-like creatures, a few of the nearby shapes were recognizably humanoid. Still, the only completely familiar things he could see were what was an Earth goose to his right and The Doctor to his right. Crowley attempted to get his attention, but The Doctor didn't so much ad glance at him.

It was at this moment that Crowley realized that he was the only thing (as far he could see) that was moving at all. Everything else in the room was just standing and staring forward blankly. In every direction, the room stretched on for as far as Crowley could see with his limited field of vision. Of all the countless things that were being held here, he was definitely the only one who was moving. Everything else just stared into space, unblinking and unbreathing. For a terrifying moment, Crowley wondered if they were all dead.

Then he heard a tapping sound behind him. With some difficulty, he turned himself around. A few rows down, something else stirred. Though it was hard to see much through the colored glass of the tube he was in, a distinctly humanoid shape seemed to be trying to get his attention. A clawed hand frantically waved and pointed to one of the walls while a pair of glowing red eyes stared directly at Crowley, like it was attempting to tell him something. He looked in the direction it was pointing in and saw a huge metal door.

"What?" He called, but the thing in the other tube made no acknowledgment, prompting Crowley to wonder if the glass was soundproof. Whatever had been waving at him suddenly stopped and faced forward, standing as eerily still as everything else in the huge room. Once again, everything around him became completely still.

In his long, long life, Crowley had been in and gotten out of many unfortunate situations much like this one. He had found that the best way to escape sticky situations was to simply hope for a miracle. Seeing no other possible exit, Crowley maneuvered one hand to rest on the surface of the glass around him. He imagined it miraculously turning into a pile of sand at his feet. To his astonishment, nothing happened.

Of course miracles don't work here. Of course. It was a power derived from God, who remained strikingly absent in this universe. For the first time in his life, Crowley was completely trapped. If he had enough space to move his arm more, he would have punched something in pure frustration.

A loud clicking sound resonated throughout the facility. There was a metallic screeching as the doors the creature in the other pod had been pointing at swung open. Three alien beings entered the room. They were somewhat human-shaped, but a lot bigger and bulkier, with a fairly intimidating presence. Their skin was a dark, greenish-grey and they had huge, beetle-like eyes taking op most of their flat faces. One of them pushed a large moving dolly, the other two flanking the first on either side.

Crowley watched them from where he was trapped. The dolly was pushed over to the opposite side of the room from Crowley. Two of them hoisted up one of the cylinders and loaded it onto the dolly. Then, they left through the same door, taking whatever was contained in the pod elsewhere.

Over the next while, sets of aliens returned periodically to move pods from one room to another. Sometimes multiple teams of three or four would be on the floor at once, while at other times there would be nothing for what felt like hours. Every so often, one of the cylinders would light up with a flash and something would appear in it, evidently beamed in through the same means as Crowley. Still, Crowley was the only one he could see that could move. Whoever had been signaling to him didn't budge again. Everything else seemed to be in some sort of stasis, frozen but - hopefully - alive. Whatever was holding them obviously didn't work on Crowley, likely because he still, technically, didn't exist.

Like most ancient celestial beings, Crowley was rather used to waiting. But as the minutes wore on of doing absolutely nothing and hardly being able to move, he grew increasingly impatient with the situation. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't catch the attention of anyone or anything that walked past him. Then again, he wasn't completely sure that getting their attention would be a great idea. Whatever was going on here, it clearly didn't mean anything particularly fabulous for Crowley. And if he couldn't use miracles, then how would he get out of trouble? After a while, he decided to try and mimicked the frozen stance of The Doctor next to him - mostly so he could zone out and avoid further boredom. He stood up straight and stared directly ahead. For good measure, he even stopped breathing. Attempting to shut off his mind, he just stood and waited for something to happen.

And he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Eternity, or possibly an hour or two, passed before Crowley was driven back to his senses by movement. Coming back into focus, Crowley saw that the pod he was in was being carefully transferred onto a dolly. Upon seeing the gruff, unfamiliar faces of the alien creatures that had imprisoned him along with so many other beings, Crowley elected to remain unmoving. It was doubtful that they would be of any help, and he was curious about where and why they were taking all these pods. Also, he was admittedly quite nervous about what would happen to him - especially because he had no idea if he was mortal or not in this universe.

The dolly was wheeled out of the door and into a much smaller room. Staring frozen and straight ahead, Crowley's field of vision was limited so he couldn't see much. Through the glass, he could hear conversations of muffled clicking sounds. While he couldn't understand what they were saying, he figured it must be the aliens' form of communication.

The room was full of screens with an overabundance of buttons. Lining every wall were desks heaped with papers, written in a language that reminded Crowley of human morse code. Crowley's pod was lifted off the dolly and placed in the center of the room. The three that had moved him here left as two others entered from the opposite side of the room.

"Excuse me? In what way, shape, or form did you get the idea that this is an acceptable thing to do to me?" Crowley asked angrily. He was tired of staying still, so he instead said the exact thing he had been thinking ever since he was unwillingly brought here.

One of the aliens clicked something to the other, who clicked back. Crowley grit his teeth in frustration at not being able to understand them. They clicked back and forth to each other while looking at different screens and writing notes. This went on for a couple of minutes before Crowley was suddenly surrounded by the same blue aura as when he first teleported in. The very next moment, he vanished from the room and reappeared somewhere else.

Feeling dizzy from a mixture of anger, confusion, and the sudden relocation, Crowley slowly lifted his head to take in his new surroundings. Much to his relief, he found that he was no longer trapped in the confines of the tube and could now move around freely. He was in a small, dark, living room. A green, shabby, and slightly moist carpet covered the floor while peeling floral wallpaper attempted to cover each wall. The only furniture in the whole room was a sagging couch and an absolutely ancient TV on top of a slightly crooked credenza. Leaning against one of the walls was a grey bad of moldy golf clubs.

There was a door on either side of the room. Crowley cautiously wandered through the door on his left. It lead him into a crusty little kitchen, in a similar dim and derelict state as the TV room.

"The hell is this?" Crowley muttered to himself, unsure of how he had gone from being trapped by aliens to a run-down suburban Earth household.

"You," said a voice from directly behind Crowley. Gradually, he turned around to see who had spoken. Before him stood a beetle-like creature with a distinctly humanoid stance. Her face looked very human, but with big, red eyes and slightly scaley skin. She wore something orange and vaguely suit-ish, with a clawed hand and the end of all four of her sleeved arms. Giving Crowley a slight stare, she remarked, "you're the one whose stasis pod wasn't working."

"Stasis pod? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense." Crowley shrugged. He recognized this alien as the one who had tried to get his attention back in the room with all the pods. "Do you know what's going on?" He asked casually, not sounding too bothered by the situation, "because I sure don't."

"We're in a human habitat at the Jaqanial Menagerie."

"Ah. Okay, cool. Might as well be."

"But you're not human... are you?"

"I could be. Who are you to say?" Crowley said a little defensively.

"It's just-- you're speaking Grogish, so you can't be from Humania. Or-- Earth, I think they call it." The alien reasoned with a nod.

"Humania?" Crowley echoed.

"Nevermind. Sorry, where are my manners?" She shook her head, "Hello! I am called Osiris, of the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius. And you are?"

"I am, yes," Crowley replied simply.

"No-- I meant... I- I didn't catch your name," clarified Osiris of the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius.

"I didn't throw it," Crowley answered in a cool tone.

"Crowley--!" A voice suddenly called from the other room. Moments later, The Doctor came running into the kitchen. "You're never going to believe this, but I think we were teleported into a human habitat on an alien space station. When we were in the TARDIS, the-- hello!" He stopped himself to wave at Osiris.

"Hello?" She responded tentatively.

"I'm The Doctor. Who might you be?"

"Osiris," said Osiris, "of the--"

"How is this a 'human habitat' if none of us are human?" Crowley interrupted to point out the obvious flaw in the story.

"Wrong question," decided The Doctor, "the question is: what language are we speaking?"

"What?" Crowley and Osiris said in semi-unison.

"Right now, what language am I speaking?" The Doctor asked seriously.

"What do you mean? You're both speaking Grogish," Osiris answered.

"No, we're not. Something's translating what we say. But the problem," The Doctor paused, "is that universal translators won't be invented in this galaxy for another 300 years. Which means..."

"Perhaps there's some demonic magic involved?" Crowley tried.

"No. It means-- the TARDIS must be nearby," The Doctor gave a delighted nod at the mention of his ship. With purpose, he paced out of the kitchen and into a dark entrance room, which featured stunning accessories such as a grimey welcome mat under a door and a disassembled coffee table. Looking around, he explained, "my TARDIS telepathically translates speech into a language your mind can understand. If we can understand each other, then we have to be within short range. If I can just--" Quickly, the Doctor reached for his top pocket only to come back empty-handed. "Right. No sonic," he sighed.

Upon seeing the front door, Crowley walked right over to it and flung it open. Ready to escape, he marched outside. To his dismay, his path to freedom was once again blocked by a thick wall of glass.

A decrepit, sagging old house sat squarely in the center of a huge room, encased by four glass walls. The terrain within the glass confines was only dirt, with no vegetation whatsoever. Outside of the room, a clean hallway circled the house, ultimately leading off somewhere Crowley couldn't see.

The first instinctual reaction Crowley had was to walk straight into the wall and slip through the gaps between the atoms in the glass. Without thinking, he confidently swaggered up to the glass at full force and smacked right into it. As he staggered back from the impact, Crowley remembered not being able to create miracles earlier.

"Are you... alright?" The Doctor called from behind Crowley, exiting the house in front of Osiris.

"This universe /sucks/!" Crowley yelled in frustration, running up to the glass and punching it with all his might. As one might expect, the demon only managed to bruise his knuckles in the action. Regretting his decision to punch a glass wall, Crowley pulled his hand back and shook it, trying to dislodge the pins and needles he felt in his fingers.

"No," The Doctor said with a grimace "just takes some getting used to, I suppose. For example: in this universe, it is not exactly customary to walk into solid walls."

"Yeah, I know that now," Crowley frowned, looking up at the towering glass wall in front of him. Putting his aching fist to rest at his side, he surveyed his surroundings in search of an escape route.

"Exactly how do you two know each other?" Osiris inquired, standing at the entrance to the house.

"He hit me with his spaceship," Crowley said casually, "and then kidnapped me."

"That is /not/ what happened," The Doctor responded instantly.

"That is exactly what happened."

"Is not, and you broke my sonic!"

"You almost got me killed. And--" Crowley responded indignantly.

"And--!" The Doctor interrupted, "You hurt my TARDIS."

"You kidnapped me!"

"Woah, sorry I asked," Osiris took a step back towards the house.

"Look, I apologize," The Doctor reconciled in a level tone, "but I can help you get home now."

"Can you? Because we seem to be in a bit of a predicament right now." Crowley gestured to the space around him.

"Beleive me, I've been in loads of predicaments - and I've always gotten out. You just have to trust me. I can get us out of here," Once again, he reached for his top pocket. "Still no sonic," he sighed as if he had forgotten that the sonic screwdriver had been - by no fault of Crowley's - destroyed.

Crowley had been about to make a jab at The Doctor's obviously misplaced confidence when Osiris spoke up.

"Actually," she said carefully, "I can get us out of here."

At that, both Crowley and The Doctor whipped around to look at Osiris. The Raxacoricofallapatorian in question looked from left to right, as if she were making sure no one was spying on them.

"Well?" Crowley prompted.

"See," Osiris began, "this zoo is under suspicion of mistreatment of animals - especially when it comes to intelligent species. So I've disguised myself as a human and snuck in. And let me just say, I've already got a case. I cannot even begin to tell you how many codes their stasis room violates."

"How, exactly, does that help us?" Inquired Crowley. He already wasn't particularly stoked by the idea of being an animal in the zoo, and now he knew that it wasn't even a /good/ zoo.

"You're a reporter!" The Doctor decided.

"Yes!" Osiris confirmed. "And I have friends on the outside that are going to get me out after I've gotten enough evidence. And after I release this stuff, there'll be outrage, and the zoo will have to be redone. You just have to wait a little--"

"Nope, terrible plan, I don't do waiting," Crowley informed.

"It won't be long at all," Osiris replied.

"Not to criticize," Crowley said critically, absolutely intending to criticize, "but won't people riot anyway when they see they've got intelligent, y'know, things-- on display here?"

"What do you mean?" Osiris asked.

"Well, if they've got humans here-- er, I guess, supposedly, if they've got humans here, then people would see that. I mean, this has to be against some kind of law, yeah?"

"The Jaqanial Menagerie is private. The only way to get access is to be invited, and to be invited..." The Doctor trailed off.

"Only a certain kind of person gets let in. Vile creatures, the kind of twisted being that wouldn't care of we spent the rest of our lives in here," Osiris elaborated.

"Ah. Splendid." Crowley said sarcastically.

"Hold on, you've disguised yourself as human? How've you done that?" The Doctor asked Osiris, looking her up and down in the same way he had studied Crowley when they'd first met.

"Ah, well-- the servants here are mostly blind, but they can smell heat and blood. Most can recognize a species by its heat signature alone. By carefully augmenting blood flow, I can appear human to them." Osiris unsleeved her bottom right arm to reveal a complex network of strings wrapped around the entire limb.

Seemingly very interested by this, The Doctor stepped forward to inspect Osiris's augmented arm. "That's brilliant," he said with a smile, "why human, though?"

"I've heard the human habitats here are especially bad. I'm getting an inside look."

"How lovely," Crowley chimed in once more, somewhat distracted by the glass wall. The trick was to find an irregularity, something he could maybe punch. The pain in his knuckles from punching the wall the first time had mostly subsided, so he was ready to go again.

"Why were you classified as human, though?" Osiris asked as she slid her heavy sleeve back up over her arm.

"Good question. Crowley? Why are we human?" The Doctor turned to Crowley. Something about his tone and expression made the inquiry feel like a trick question. Or possibly a test. Either way, Crowley didn't like it.

"I might as well be human," Crowley shrugged. It was true; in this universe he didn't seem to have all of his demonic powers, so he wasn't entirely celestial. At this point, he was probably as much a human as he was a demon - or anything else, really. Without turning his head, he gingerly touched various points on the glass, hoping against hope that a miracle would happen after all. "Maybe they just suck at classifying things."

"Or maybe," The Doctor began, looking poised to launch into a speech theorizing the possibilities of the dilemma. Before he could continue, however, he was silenced by a curt wave from Osiris as she pointed towards the hallway outside the glass box.

The sound of multiple heavy footsteps approaching finally moved Crowley's attention, distracting him from pondering whether or not he could fly out through the ceiling. Two of the same strange, beetle-like creatures from before walked up to the enclosure, while another pushed a dolly with another stasis pod on it.

They were saying something to each other that Crowley could barely recognize as English. Probably had something to do with the TARDIS translators or whatever The Doctor had been saying. Still, Crowley very rarely actually paid attention to what The Doctor said, so anything he thought he'd heard was up to interpretation. Although muffled by the glass between them, Crowley could vaguely make out words that sounded something like, "full... scan... ... ... ship... eliminate... ... weak... ... ... need one."

So it was not incredibly helpful.

The three of them discussed for a while, and Crowley quickly stopped trying to listen. The Doctor and Osiris were talking in hushed tones somewhere behind him, but he wasn't particularly interested. Stepping forward to approach the glass once more (this time, at a respectable distance), Crowley gave a frown and a wave to try and get the aliens' attention. Sure enough, all three looked into the habitat and stared directly at him. He was sure he heard one of them say "that one?"

"Yes," replied another.

"Crowley? What are you--" The Doctor started speaking, but Crowley suddenly found himself out of earshot when he was teleported into the pod on the dolly. After his third unwilling teleport, he was beginning to get used to the weird, fuzzy sense of disappearing and appearing again. Regardless, he felt a little dizzy as he struggled to turn around in the cramped confines of the pod to face the human habitat from the outside. From an outside perspective, the house and the grass-free lawn looked even shabbier than they die from the outside. Crowley now noticed how the roof was sagging dramatically and many of the shingles had been collected in the gutters. It was a wreck, truly.

The aliens wasted no time wheeling the dolly - pod and Crowley included - away and back down the hallway. Just before they turned the corner, he caught a glimpse of The Doctor frantically pacing behind the glass wall, likely babbling at incredible speeds to an unsuspecting Osiris.

Despite the grim unknowability of the situation, Crowley felt thankful that he didn't have to be subjected to any more of The Doctor's nonsense.

At least for now, that was a win.


	3. By the Light of the TARDIS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the dark and on his own, Crowley explores the alien zoo in search of escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while since the last update! I still very much plan to continue this series. I had a lot of fun writing this, hope you enjoy :)

Now that Crowley was behind a much slimmer wall of glass, he could pick up the voices of his alien captors much better. Through the cylindrical layer of ultramarine film he was being held in, he caught most of their conversation. Their speech was low and gruff, clicking occasionally substituting for words.

"Why isn't it in ssstasis?" One hissed as they pushed the dolly containing Crowley down a lengthy corridor.

"It's ssstill moving..." Added another with a series of teeth-snapping clicks that sounded vaguely reminiscent of laughter.

"I've heard," a third chimed in, "that humansss do unpredictable thingsss... all the time..."

"Maybe it's sssick," speculated the first.

"I have a name, you know," Crowley grumbled at them. When he said this, all three aliens jumped in surprise.

"It speaksss...?"

"How fascinating..."

"Unpredictable... indeed..."

"Yeah, I can speak, idiots. Who do you think you are? I'm a demon! I will destroy you! I will rain fire upon this sinful-- space... thing. I-- are you even listening?" Crowley stopped when he realized that the aliens weren't acknowledging anything he said. "Hey! Hey!"

No reply came. Crowley promptly gave up trying to get their attention and settled for quibbling nonsense to himself instead. For the rest of the trip to wherever-they-were-going, none of the aliens spoke another word.

A few minutes of being wheeled about later, the alien crew entered a small room, the walls of which were spotless ivory, and stopped. Before Crowley could get so much as a glimpse of this new environment, a mind-boggling fuzziness enveloped his senses as he was teleported out of the pod. It felt like blacking out, except instead of falling unconscious he reappeared in a different room. After gathering his composure, he snapped his gaze around the new location, prepared to fight anything that tried to hold him down again.

The room, only a few times larger than the cramped stasis pod, was vacant except for Crowley. The walls were a solid white, contrasted by a dark metallic door with a three-sided doorknob on the wall behind him. He looked around; to the left, then the right, then back to the left. Pivoting in place, he turned around and tried the door. As one might expect, it was locked.

"Commencing medical scan," an unseen robotic voice declared suddenly. Above the door, a panel in the wall dropped open and a camera-like apparatus popped out. It wriggled back and forward before turning to face Crowley directly. It hummed electrically before declaring, "scanning" and emitting a pale red laser directed at Crowley. It fell on the center of his chest. He instinctively tried to step out of its way to make things as difficult for whatever was trying to look at him as possible. To his great annoyance, it tracked him flawlessly wherever he moved. Nevertheless, he continued to attempt to squirm away from the beam.

"Can you /not/?" Crowley asked the little robot, indignant. It ignored him.

"Scan complete," it buzzed loudly after a moment as it withdrew back into the wall. An invisible speaker continued, in the same jarring, robotic voice, "height: zero units; mass: zero units; vitals: no; species: no; diagnosis--" It suddenly cut off. Something inside the wall made a crackling sound. Sizzling static filled the room.

"Diagnosis-- diag-- di-- d-d-d-d-diagnosis: CRITICAL ERROR."

The lights in the room wavered, then went out with a pop, leaving Crowley in near-complete darkness except for a constellation of green lights over the door. Then, those shuddered off too. There was the sweeping melody of machinery shutting down, followed only by a stretch of eerie silence.

For just a moment, the blackness was unconditional and Crowley couldn't see anything. Then, the darkness began to ebb. Like any other snake, Crowley had the ability to see relatively well in the dark based on heat patterns. Vague, shadowy shapes that made up the walls and door made themselves visible. He breathed a sigh of relief as he found that at least this ability had not been lost when he traveled through the rift.

Once he could see again, Crowley's immediate reaction was to check the door again. Stepping forward, he cautiously laid one hand on the triangular doorknob. Just as he was about to turn it, the door whirled open forcefully from the other side.

Harsh, white light momentarily blinded Crowley. He hissed and staggered back, screwing up his eyes against the sudden brightness. Once his vision had readjusted, he looked up to see an alien towering over him. In one hand, it held a shockingly powerful handheld flashlight, pointed right at Crowley's face. The room outside of where he was being held was shadowy, illuminated in part by the flashlight. With the light shining right in his face, it was difficult for Crowley to see in the dark.

Despite hardly being able to see, Crowley didn't miss the opportunity of an open door. He wasted no time scampering out of the room. The alien tried to block the doorway, but he managed to scramble underneath its arms and out into the adjoining room. The light from the flashlight and Crowley's slightly addled night vision revealed the place to be crawling with aliens, all of which advanced on Crowley as soon as they saw he had escaped. They lumbered forward, not nearly quickly enough to stop their target from dashing out of the dark room and into an even darker hallway.

Risking no time to think, Crowley sprinted into the thick darkness that permeated the hallway. After a few seconds of running blind, his eyes accommodated to the darkness again, just in time for him to see that a turn in the hallway was fast-approaching. Narrowly avoiding crashing headlong into the wall, Crowley nimbly rounded the corner and continued to dart in the new direction. 

For the second time in the remarkably short time he had known The Doctor, Crowley found himself running for his life in a ludicrously absurd situation. He didn't know where he was going, he had no plan, and - though he would never admit this to anyone - he was afraid. Again. He genuinely didn't know where he was or if he would ever find a way out. Even if he did, there was no telling if he would ever make it back to his own universe. He was powerless to do anything but run and keep running as the sounds of footsteps pursuing him grew more and more distant with each leaping stride Crowley made into the dark.

Having put a good amount of distance between himself and the aliens, he took a moment to slow down and look around for something helpful. A map or exit sign or weapon would have been nice, but the near featureless hallway stretched on with no obvious items of use for what could have been miles. The odd door appeared on either side of the hallway, labeled with big, bold signs above their doorframes. Even with night vision, it was difficult to make out what any of the signs said. The difference between a slab of metal and slightly embossed letters was practically imperceptible to the reptilian eye. Crowley had to stare at the sign for a very long time before he realized that it wasn't in any language he understood.

A loud clicking that Crowley recognized as the wet chattering of alien mandibles blared in the dark hallway. It came from everywhere at once, leaving him to contemplate which direction he should run in. The sound echoed around the corridor for a few seconds, then stopped, then started again, then stopped, and started again. Distant, mechanical whirring started up from somewhere far away. Deciding not to stick around to see what was happening, Crowley bolted along a fork in the hallway like a startled squirrel. He only stopped when the clicking stopped, when it changed. To his astonishment, the incomprehensible snapping blended into a robotic voice that he could understand in clear English.

"Airlock failure detected in hall 11Q. Entering emergency power mode. All personnel are instructed to evacuate sector 11 during maintenance. This message will now repeat."

An announcement. Crowley understood. Earlier, he had been able to understand what the aliens said as well, although at other he couldn't always, depending on where he was. Putting two and two together, he remembered The Doctor saying something about alien languages translating themselves in the vicinity of--

"The TARDIS!" He realized out loud.

If he could just find the TARDIS, perhaps he could figure out a way out of here. Piloting a timeship couldn't be /that/ hard to figure out...

...right?

The announcement stopped after a few repetitions. Knowing that he must've been heading in the right direction by the fact that the nearest signs were now in clear English, Crowley continued down the dimly lit corridor. He swiftly came to another fork in the passage, with directional signs labeled "barracks" pointing to one direction and "confiscated items" pointing to the other. Figuring that the TARDIS is more likely to be a confiscated item than in an alien barracks, Crowley turned down the latter.

Illuminated by the low light of "emergency power mode," the unadorned, austere white walls of the corridor stretched on until it dissipated into shadow. The barrenness of the hall that led to confiscated items was almost comical. Crowley might have made a sarcastic comment about the inefficient design of the zoo had he not been fearing for his life, a sensation that he hadn't felt since the Fall. Since he had met The Doctor, being in mortal peril seemed to be the only constant.

Race-walking down the hallway, Crowley continued on his way. After an excessively long time of hiking and constantly being on the lookout for aliens, he recognized a door peeking out of the shadows at the end of the corridor. With newfound enthusiasm, he half-cantered forward. The door automatically slid open upon his approach, revealing nothing but another stretch of dark hall.

"Agh!" Crowley roared in frustration, his fear unable to contain his annoyance anymore, "who designed this place?!"

Luckily for Crowley, his question was answered only by its own echoes. For a solid 30 seconds, he stared into the darkness, thoroughly unsure of himself. Although it didn't particularly bother him as a supernatural entity, he noted that the area felt extremely cold - likely too cold for any creature to survive - and Crowley was pretty sure he wasn't breathing. He supposed it must've had something to do with the "airlock failure" that the earlier announcement had reported. At least for now, the vacuum of space appeared to be breaching the area. Thusly, it made sense to Crowley that these corridors were deserted. He had no inkling of what that might mean for The Doctor and Osiris, though.

Fortunately, this hall was much less endless than it seemed. After taking a handful of hurried paces forward, the cold shadows veiling the end of the hall parted and Crowley could see the thin thermal outline of a double door. Above it rested a metallic sign fixed to the wall. Upon approaching the door and staring at the sign for an extended amount of time, he was able to make out the words:

Confiscated Items  
Maintenance Entrance

The fact that Crowley was able to read the sign at all confirmed that he had gone in the correct direction. Urgently, he took the doorknob in hand and pushed on the door, but it wouldn't budge. For a brief, terrifying while, he thought that he had come all this way for a dead end. He was about to abandon all hope when he attempted pulling on the door. It swung open soundlessly.

"Oh," he glanced behind him once, slightly embarrassed, "alright."

Slipping through the door into yet another cold, dark area, Crowley worked to piece together his surroundings from thermal signatures. The chamber felt large, much wider than the corridors. It was pitch black save for a few unrecognizable gray specks of heat. The room was either mostly empty or so cold that few of the objects in the room held enough heat to be detectable by his serpentine senses. In a dark room floating in the sub-zero void of space, it could have been either. Fumbling blindly, Crowley took a single, shaky step forward and immediately walked into a wall.

Warm, alabaster light filled the demon's vision, so dazzling compared to the darkness he had been in moments earlier that it nearly knocked him right off his feet. Squinting, he desperately attempted to gather his bearings in case he had to run again. Then, he heard it.

Like a police siren being shoved through a metal shredder, the shrill babble of the TARDIS reverberated tremendously throughout the room. It felt so familiar, so welcome. Even though he had hardly spent any time in the thing, he already associated the blue box with safety.

Getting used to the new light levels, Crowley blinked the gloom out of his vision. Scintillating light spilled out from the beacon nestled on the roof of the TARDIS, radiant enough to subdue the oppressive dark into shadows and reveal the colors of the surrounding area. The room looked like a futuristic garbage dump, full of strange gadgets and spare parts. Heaps of metal scrap scaled the walls, with intermittent boulder-sized hunks of machinery jutting out from whirlpools of beads and gears and stones. In the midst of it all, a police box stood tall and proud like the queen of the junkyard. There was something cosmically majestic about it. 

Crowley stepped forward again, laying one hand on the front door of the TARDIS. Upon contact with the demon, the box beeped gently. It was a soft but powerful note, like a distant supernova resonating inside Crowley's skull. Gently at first, then forcefully when he didn't get results, he pushed on the box's wooden door. It held fast. Crowley grit his teeth.

"Come on," He hissed in frustration. The TARDIS needed a key. A key that Crowley did not have. He was about to try kicking the front door down when he heard the soft click of tumblers and the doors to the TARDIS swung open on their own. It let him in, like it knew he was there. Like it recognized him.

The TARDIS greeted him with a dimly dissonant tone that proposed a question Crowley couldn't quite translate. Dirty, lukewarm lighting covered every surface like rust while a soft blue glow seeped up from the central console. As soon as he gazed upon the manifold buttons and levers and switched and unintelligible gizmos that supposedly flew the ship, Crowley wondered why in Heaven he had ever even considered this as a viable escape route. Especially when the last time he had touched the console, the whole thing just broke down.

With no other option than to try, Crowley pressed the first button he saw on a wild gamble. The overhead lights flickered twice but didn't go out entirely. Otherwise, nothing happened. At least it didn't shut down totally.

He tested a lever next, flipping the handle horizontally into a position marked by a strange circular symbol. The TARDIS whirred in response, as if it were laughing at Crowley's failure to understand how to operate a time machine. With a frown, he switched the lever back to its original position. The lights blinked again. He balanced his hands on the edge of the console. Something bobbed up and down in the center tube. It seemed strangely alive, like it was trying to tell him something.

"Can you just... do the thing?" Crowley urged the TARDIS on the off chance that it could hear and respond to words. "You know, fly, or--"

He cut himself off, exasperated. Them. with varying levels of success, he tried to mimic the wheezing noise the ship made when it dematerialized.

"You know, that thing."

Silence.

Throwing caution to the wind, Crowley ran a circle around the octagonal console, pressing and switching controls at random. The TARDIS whinnied, a series of mechanical gasps like a car starting up. A car whose engine was fueled by the universe.

Crowley gave up haphazardly tripping every control once the noise grew too loud to bear. It sounded too much like screaming after a while, unpleasant both in volume and connotation. For a prolonged handful of seconds, he only stared at the console, as if the answer might come to him if he thought at it hard enough.

It would have worked if he was back home, in his own universe.

Maybe in the book shop.

Maybe with Aziraphale.

Crowley breathed a sigh. He could hardly remember what he had been so mad about in the first place that had driven him to so impulsively contact this other reality. But now he was stuck in space, possibly forever.

A pleasant chime drove Crowley out of his head and back into the TARDIS.

"What?!" He snapped suddenly, skipping back a step and sweeping a glare around the control room. "What do you want from me? You let me in, now what?"

Something shifted underneath the console. With a click, a little hole opened up on one of the panels and something small and silver rose amid the controls. Curious, Crowley approached. A little cylinder poked out among a miniature forest of levers, gray and black and peculiarly shaped. Dumbfounded, he touched it gingerly and it wobbled loosely in its socket. He pulled, finding that it disconnected from the console with minimal effort so he could examine what the thing was.

As soon as he saw the deep blue scanning tip of what was unmistakably a sonic screwdriver, Crowley understood exactly what the TARDIS was trying to convey to him:

'Find my pilot. Then we'll talk.'


	4. Maximum Stakes Charades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Co. narrowly escape back to Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah. It's been a while. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if I was ever going to pick this story back up, but sudden inspiration struck in the form of my good friend crowleyisnotsoft literally paying me actual legal currency to finish it, and now I'm all excited about this series again.

Honestly, Crowley hadn’t expected to get this far. It felt like he had been wandering around the sprawling maze of corridors and rooms and dead ends for ages, and with each passing second he grew more and more certain that he would be captured. However, even after the lights came back on and the temperature returned to normal, he never glimpsed another alien warden of the zoo. And even after he had meandered far enough away from the TARDIS that the myriad of wall-mounted signs became untranslatable again, he heard no tell of any living thing besides his own footsteps. He didn’t have a clue which direction The Doctor was in, or what the odds were that he would still be alive at this point. Nevertheless, Crowley had no choice but to forge on.

He thought he may have been making progress when he glimpsed a sign out of the corner of his eye that read “Earth Exhibits.” In embossed English letters translated by the TARDIS, which Crowley had thought had been left behind miles ago. He had gone in a circle. With a groan, he stopped in his tracks, pivoted in place, and shuffled off back the way he came. He made it a good handful of paces back down the hallway before he paused.

“Hold on,” Crowley murmured to himself, shifting his gaze behind him to read the sign again.

Earth Exhibits.

He was looking for the human habitat.

Humans are from Earth.

With a jolt, Crowley practically sprinted over to the sign. He took one look in the direction it indicated and saw that a huge glass room nestled squarely at the end of the corridor. Within it crouched the decaying old house he had been placed into at the beginning of this whole fiasco. And just outside that house, pacing as if he had a personal vendetta against the earthy floor, stood the unmistakably familiar form of The Doctor. Nearby, the distant shape of Osiris gesticulated urgently with all six of her arms.

As Crowley approached the enclosure, he passed by several other rooms encased in glass. Each room contained an animal from Earth; a swan; a moose; a shark; some kind of gazelle, maybe (Crowley wasn’t quite sure), all remarkably alive. At the end of it all, the human habitat stood as if the ramshackle suburban dwelling was somehow the crowning jewel of the Earth collection.

“Hey!” Crowley called as he raced-walked up to the glass barrier.

Gazing intently at the ground, The Doctor made no acknowledgment of Crowley’s presence. Without looking up, he kept pacing, and Crowley remembered that sound did not carry well through the thick wall of glass between them.

“Hey!” He shouted, louder this time, knocking heavily on the glass.

The Doctor shot a wayward glace in Crowley’s direction. He beamed when he saw the demon and exclaimed something to Osiris, though Crowley couldn’t make out the syllables. The three of them faced each other. Aware of the sound-muffling power of the wall between him and others, Crowley shrilled, “Can you hear me?”

With the puzzled, unresponsive stare the two behind the glass answered Crowley with, he assumed the answer to be a resounding “no.”

Stepping away from the glass, Crowley surveyed the barrier up and down, searching for a weakness or door or miracle that would help him to free The Doctor so they could finally get out of here.

Muted sounds clued Crowley into the fact that The Doctor was trying to say something. Getting as close to the glass as possible, Crowley mouthed “what?” After a few urgent repetitions, he was certain of only two words The Doctor’s message contained:

“...that...out…?”

Grimacing in frustration, The Doctor pointed forcefully at the wall immediately to Crowley’s right, indicating a square panel in the metallic wall, colored slightly darker than the rest. In a match of high-stakes charades, The Doctor mimed the action of gripping something and pulling it loose. Crowley decided that this meant Crowley should do the same with the wall.

The panel was very obviously removable. Unfortunately, Crowley didn’t have the tools to do so. A black screw in each corner fastened it tightly to the surrounding metal, unmovable unless Crowley had what would have to have been a very strangely shaped screwdriver.

Which, of course, he didn’t have...

...Wait.

Crowley could only hope that the name “sonic screwdriver” meant that it was functionally similar to a standard, non-sonic screwdriver. He turned back to The Doctor. For a moment, The Doctor looked defeated, like removing that panel had been his only hope at a plan. Then, after a moment of rifling through his coat pockets, Crowley produced the sonic screwdriver he had received from the TARDIS and held it up with a quizzical look. In an instant, The Doctor's face lit up. He gave a jovial nod and an enthusiastic thumbs-up, at which Crowley returned to the panel.

The screwdriver had no obvious apparatus for screwdriving. In place of a head, a blue, vaguely Christmas light-esque bulb rested at the end of a gray plastic shaft. It was clearly not designed to simply be jammed into a socket and twisted around like any reasonable screwdriver. Flipping the thing over, Crowley noticed a little white button on the side. Like most buttons he'd encountered in the last few hours, he immediately pressed it. With a high-pitched buzzing sound, the little bulb glowed blue for just a moment, then went out as soon as Crowley moved his finger off the button. With this newfound understanding of the device, he tentatively positioned the sonic screwdriver in front of one of the bolts and activated it.

The buzzing began again as the screwdriver dimly illuminated the bolt with its ultramarine glow. Like magic (or sufficiently advanced technology), the bolt promptly unscrewed itself and fell to the floor with a gentle clang. Crowley hazarded a brief glance at The Doctor, which he immediately regretted upon seeing that smug, expectant expression the time-traveler wore so often. Rolling his eyes ever-so-slightly, Crowley called himself back to the task at hand and gradually unscrewed the remaining three bolts until the panel could easily be removed by hand.

Just as Crowley placed the severed panel against the wall, the distant but fast-approaching tapping of footsteps echoed down the corridor. With a start, he realized that this prison break would have to be expedited. Tensing up, he surveyed the hole the panel had concealed to reveal a single switch labeled "emergency release." It seemed self-explanatory enough.

Much to his dismay, however, a tiny keypad slid out from under the switch as soon as he pulled it. "Please enter override code," chimed a robotic voice. Meanwhile, the sound of footsteps only drew nearer.

Crowley's first impulse was to punch it as hard as he could and hope for the best, but he managed to hold off on that this time. His second impulse, then, was to jam the sonic screwdriver at the problem and pray that screwdriver/scanner/shitty flashlight also functioned as an emergency override code.

Though he knew it was counterproductive, it really got under Crowley's nerves when the keypad flashed green and accepted the override because _of course that worked_.__

_ _The front-facing wall of the glass enclosure flipped upwards like a garage door just as two hulking alien guards rounded the final corner the lead into the Earth exhibits. In only a few moments, they would be near enough to recapture the three non-humans. Sensibly, The Doctor wasted no time hopping through the opening in the wall. Meanwhile, Crowley had already made his way over to the hallway on the other side of the room, prepared for yet another thrilling chase scene. Osiris, however, trailed behind._ _

_ _“Come on!” Prompted The Doctor._ _

_ _“I- I think I have to stay here. I have a job to do.”_ _

_ _“But they’ll kill you! I won’t just--”_ _

_ _“Ugh, we don’t have time for this!” Crowley hissed, a hint of panic entering his tone as time ran out. In a series of sporadic, frenzied movements, he gripped The Doctor’s wrist in one hand and Osirus’s in the other, forcibly dragging them away from the enclosure._ _

_ _The jumpstart was all the two of them needed to come to their senses at the exact instant the guards reached the room. Now was certainly not the time to be having this kind of debate. Almost in perfect sync, the three of them took one tensed step back, away from their pursuers. Without a word, they each individually came to the conclusion that there existed only one course of action to escape this situation._ _

_ _“Run!” Voiced The Doctor_ _

_ _At once, the three of them raced down the opposite hallway. The rapid thudding of heavy feet behind them told Crowley that their captors followed close behind. Luckily for them, the bulky shape of the insectoid aliens slowed them down somewhat, allowing the triad to extend a comfortable distance between them and the guards. Not comfortable enough to slow down or take a breath, but given that his celestial body had no real breath to catch in the first place, that didn’t bother Crowley anymore than this situation bothered him before they started running._ _

_ _Crowley’s mind positively raced as he desperately tried to remember the path back to the TARDIS. As they reached a fork in the corridor, he made an educated guess that the Confiscated Items room was to their left._ _

_ _“This way!” He shouted, pointing down the leftmost corridor, hoping that if he sounded confident enough he might be able to will it into being the correct direction. The Doctor and Osiris wasted no time asking if Crowley really knew where they were going, and Crowley wasted no time informing them that he almost definitely did not._ _

_ _Amazingly, the metallic engraved sign reading “Confiscated Items, Maintenance Entrance” was just barely legible at the end of the hallway. Crowley bounded forward enthusiastically, reaching the door several paces ahead of the others. Without missing a beat, he grabbed the door handle and pulled with all his might. To his absolute horror, it was locked. Just in case, he tried pushing the door as well. It still didn’t budge._ _

_ _Whipping his head around, Crowley saw The Doctor and Osiris just moments behind him. They had put some good distance between them and their pursuers, but that wouldn’t last long if they couldn’t get the door open._ _

_ _“Sonic--!” The Doctor barked as he approached._ _

_ _“Right!” Crowley fumbled with his jacket for a moment before he found the sonic screwdriver in his front pocket. The Doctor immediately snatched it out of his hands and pointed it at the door. With a shrill buzz and a gentle click, the door swung open. The three of them bolted inside without another word. As soon as they were all inside, The Doctor turned and locked the door with only moments to spare. While The Doctor and Osiris stopped to gulp down oxygen, Crowley watched through the door’s window as the aliens chasing them reached the door only to find it locked from the inside. He breathed a sigh of relief when they gave up and turned back the way they came._ _

_ _Crowley pivoted in place, expecting to see the TARDIS standing tall where he had last left it. Instead, he was greeted with absolutely nothing._ _

_ _“Hm,” was all he was able to say as his eyes scanned a vast room with nothing in it. The last time he had been here, it was full of junk. Now, it was as empty as Crowley felt when he realized that their escape route had somehow vanished._ _

_ _“Oh?” The Doctor echoed between breaths._ _

_ _“I could’ve sworn this is where the TARDIS was.”_ _

_ _Just then, Osiris interjected with a series of completely unintelligible noises._ _

_ _“What?” Crowley asked._ _

_ _“That’s her native language,” The Doctor explained, “she’s saying she can’t understand us.”_ _

_ _“But you can understand her?”_ _

_ _“No,” he admitted, “I’m just assuming that’s what she would say, given that we can’t understand her either. Which means…”_ _

_ _“The TARDIS isn’t nearby,” Crowley finished for him, putting two and two together._ _

_ _“Exactly!” The Doctor exclaimed excitedly, like he was a primary school teacher and Crowley had just earned himself a gold star._ _

_ _“But it was right here,” Crowley said as The Doctor waved the sonic screwdriver in a wide arc around the room._ _

_ _"Hmm. Something's not quite-- oh no."_ _

_ _"What?" Crowley asked._ _

_ _“The floor is on a pully," The Doctor began, looking at the sonic like it was speaking to him, "it can drop out from beneath us.” He looked at Crowley with a haunted look on his face._ _

_ _“We’re in a rubbish chute,” He concluded, sounding deeply unsettled._ _

_ _"...Oh."_ _

_ _An air of silence stretched between the three of them._ _

_ _"Well shoot," Crowley said at last, "now what?"_ _

_ _The Doctor stared off into empty space, seemingly ignoring Crowley's question. "My TARDIS…" he lamented, "all alone in space..."_ _

_ _"Okay, but-- what can we do about it?"_ _

_ _Osiris attempted to communicate something, but Crowley didn't understand a word of it. He looked to her and gave a tentative shrug._ _

_ _"My TARDIS," The Doctor repeated, sounding on the verge of tears, "my TARDIS is gone…"_ _

_ _"Alright, screw this," Crowley made a beeline for the door, "you can stand around and whine about your dumb box if you want. _I_ am finding a way out of this God-forsaken zoo if it bloody kills me."___ _

_ _ _ _He sounded a lot more confident than he felt._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _"The TARDIS was our way out."_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Osiris interjected again with a string of words that were utter nonsense to Crowley._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Crowley's hand hovered over the doorknob as he swiveled his head to face the Doctor. "There has to be another way. Otherwise, we're trapped here forever so… there just has to be," he reasoned, "an escape pod, or a parking lot, or something."_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _"An escape pod!" The Doctor exclaimed, "Of course! They've got to have escape pods!"_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _Suddenly, three hands gripped Crowley's upper arm tight, clawing urgently at the soft fabric of his jacket. He snapped his gaze around to see Osiris looking frustrated as she pointed fiercely at the window with her fourth hand while shouting something in a furious tone. Crowley realized what she had been trying to convey to them._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _"They're here," Crowley translated for her, gawking at the group of aliens making their way down the long corridor towards them. To his incredible alarm, each of them carried a device that Crowley could think of no words to describe other than laser blaster, looking straight out of a sci-fi film._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _The oversized garbage disposal they currently resided in had two entrances: the maintenance entrance where they had come from, and what was most likely the main entrance on the other side of the room. Wordlessly, The Doctor race-walked over to the main entrance, Crowley and Osiris in tow. This door, much like the other one, turned out to be locked._ _ _ _

_ _ _ _"Okay," said The Doctor, raising the ridiculous multitool of a screwdriver to unlock the door through methods only explainable through witchcraft, "I know this type of ship. It--"_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _The door swung open just as a very threatening _bang_ interrupted The Doctor to suggest that the guards had reached the maintenance entrance.___ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _"Gah!" The Doctor burst out, "If only I had some time to think!" _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _Time.___ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Crowley stopped dead in his tracks._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Oh, right," he breathed, as it occurred to him that he had the ability to stop time._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The Doctor shot Crowley a panicked yet curious look. The very next instant, the grey shades of the ship around them faded into a scene of endless white as time stopped moving for everyone and everything in the universe except for the three of them. Crowley let out a sigh of relief when he discovered that this power still worked in this reality._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"What…? Where…?" Gasped The Doctor._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"I've stopped time," Crowley explained simply._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The Doctor looked speechless. Then, his expression shifted to near anger._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"You can STOP TIME?!" He resounded in a high-pitched, exasperated tone._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"I guess," Crowley shrugged._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"You-- you guess? And you just-- you just neglected to mention this? Because that only would have come in handy like _ten-thousand times_!"___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Whatever," Crowley fluttered his wings (which The Doctor hadn't seemed to notice yet, or perhaps he was too afraid to ask)._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The thing about being this far removed from reality is that social constructs like time, physical form, and perception stop working as intended. Physical being is replaced by a projection of the self rather than a finite form defined by light bouncing off of primitive matter. This is why Crowley, who normally is a non-physical projection anyway, reverts to his "true" form, hence the great ebony wings he now hoisted above his head. Being in a timeless voidspace also has a rather peculiar effect on language. Instead of using spoken words to communicate, Crowley and The Doctor could simply use intention - the mere idea of each sentiment they wished to convey - to hold a conversation._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _This is why when Osiris yelled something along the lines of "What the actual fuck is going on?" in an entirely alien language, Crowley and The Doctor were able to understand what she was trying to say perfectly._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Crowley genuinely didn't understand it all too well himself, so he gave her a slurred "I'dunno" in response._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"You've got wings," she observed_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Yeah."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Interesting."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Sure."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The three of them stared dumbly at one another for a while._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"So…" Crowley attempted._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Right!" The Doctor reanimated. He reached for the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a pencil and a small slip of paper, which turned out to be a very large sheet of paper once unfolded. He laid it flat on the "ground" (if you could call it that) and began sketching an oblong shape._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"This is the ship we're on," he pointed at the measly sketched diagram of what was now recognizably a spaceship, "it's a modified S-40-Mark Cargo Transport. I studied them at The Academy."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Crowley hated how proud The Doctor sounded of himself as he recited this information._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"If the disposal chute is here," he continued, drawing a circle around a little box near the back end of the ship, "the escape pods - which are absolutely mandatory on a ship of this size - should be somewhere in this area."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _He drew a line along the side of the ship. It didn't look too far away, although Crowley had no real way to grasp the scale of the diagram._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"We should already be headed in the right direction. As long as we stay portside bound, it won't be too far," The Doctor concluded with a twirl of his pencil, "I'll lead the way."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Cool," Crowley nodded._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"We'll need a plan for once we get there," The Doctor reasoned, turning his attention to Osiris to ask, "Where are you planning on going after this?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"I have a ship waiting for me just outside of orbit. Although I'm sure they aren't expecting me so soon…" She mumbled that last part to herself._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Can you pilot an escape pod?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Sure."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Alright. Provided that there are two or more escape pods, you can take one and Crowley and I will take another. We'll follow you to your ship to ensure you get there safely, and then," he turned to Crowley, "we can start looking for the TARDIS… wherever it might have gotten off too."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _He surveyed Crowley and Osiris with inquisitive eyes, likely waiting for their confirmation of the plan. They nodded in unison._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Great," he grinned, "we ready, then?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Another set of nods._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Crowley?" The Doctor questioned._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Hm?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Think you could unfreeze time for us?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Sure thing," he responded. He waited a second or two before making any actual effort to bring them back to the realm of time, just so that he knew he was doing it because he wanted to and not because The Doctor had asked. Regardless, the three of them quickly found themselves back on the ship, at the start of a long corridor with a set of armed alien guards not far behind._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Go team!" Exclaimed The Doctor as soon as time started moving again. At once, he dashed down the hallway, presumably towards the direction where the escape pods should be, though Crowley had no real way of knowing since he hadn't really been paying attention to much of The Doctor's plan. That said, he knew that the plan involved running at incredible velocities down pointlessly long hallways, as most activities involving The Doctor did. Without a second thought, he sprinted after The Doctor. The rapid footsteps of Osiris followed close behind._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _As it turned out, the escape pods weren't all that far away, after all. The Doctor had predicted their location perfectly. It didn't take much frantic running before they stood in a squat, oval-shaped room with a set of circular doors lining one of the walls._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The Doctor immediately grasped and pulled on the handle of one of the doors. It let out a soft wheezing noise and began opening on a mechanical hinge at an alarmingly slow rate. Actually managing to remember that the plan called for two escape pods, Crowley opened another. All they could do was watch the doors gradually rolled open as the thumping footfalls of their pursuers drew ever closer._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The second the first escape pod was completely open, The Doctor practically shoved Osiris into it, closing the door behind her. Distressingly, the door closed just as slowly as it had opened. They were running out of time._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _By the time Crowley and The Doctor climbed into the second escape pod, the guards had almost reached their location. The door was in the process of closing itself as the door burst open and a pack of aliens filed into the room._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The Doctor repeatedly pushed a big red button again, muttering, "Launch… launch… launch…" over and over again._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Launch… please launch…" Crowley contributed._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _A resounding hiss sounded from the pod next to them, not unlike the hiss of a soda can being opened (but multiplied by a thousand), signifying that Osiris had successfully launched her pod._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The door was well on its way to closing when the aliens started open firing on them._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Get down!" The Doctor ordered._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _As cramped as it felt in the escape pod, Crowley found just enough room to duck as a barrage of _actual lasers_ rained down on the pod. The now mostly-closed door blocked the majority of the shots, but a few made their way into the pod, leaving huge circular burns on the metal casing that fortified the walls.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Crowley watched in what felt like slow motion as an astonishingly bright laser beam just barely missed his face and proceeded to crash right into the pod's control panel, resulting in a deafening explosion. The two denizens of the pod received a shower of sparks and smoke as a series of grisly electrical burns made their way up the controls, popping the little plastic casings over each button, leaving nothing but a charred and melted mess in its wake. The very next instant, the pod door finally finished closing and the pod shot out into space at such a speed that Crowley's head collided painfully with the wall behind him._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The strip of light that illuminated the escape pod flashed red and white as an alarm blared from somewhere in the ceiling. Then the light shattered, causing a rain of sparks and glass shards to descend upon Crowley and The Doctor as the last light source in the pod extinguished. The two of them were left in complete and utter darkness, silent except for a weak, tortured whirring from the direction of the control panel._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _It didn't take long for Crowley's demonic eyes to adjust to the dark. While anyone else would be lost in the totality of the darkness, Crowley was able to sense the heat of his surroundings, tracing outlines in his vision of the shapes around him. The control panel had been completely obliterated; only the smell of black smoke and a wall of melted plastic remained._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Doctor?" Crowley called, dazed._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _No response._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Are you alive?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Nothing._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Just then, the entire pod shook violently. A series of tremors progressively increasing in intensity rattled the pod until Crowley began identifying with a handful of dried beans inside a pair of maracas. With rising panic, he swiveled his gaze from left to right, noticing the window on the wall behind him for the first time. Horrifyingly, he caught a glimpse of the Earth continent of Canada, steadily increasing in size as deep red flames hungrily licked the outside of the trembling pod._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _They were falling from orbit._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Crowley's thoughts raced as he desperately attempted to think of a way to stop the pod from plummeting straight into the ocean. The pod was literally disintegrating around him as he realized that he had absolutely no way to fix this. The bolts holding the window down came loose, the door was rattling off its hinges, and EVERYTHING WAS ON FIRE. The Earth approached faster and faster as the pod approached terminal velocity._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _This was it. Crowley was about to die. He was about to burn up in the atmosphere like a common asteroid and he would never get to see his angel again._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"Angel…" He said out loud, his mind lingering on the thought, "No, nononono--"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The image of Aziraphale replaced the panic in his brain with raw determination. No, he absolutely could not die here. Not here, not now, not ever. There had to be something he could do. _Of course_there was something he could do.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Crowley had fallen from further and survived, anyway._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _In a last-ditch effort to prevent himself from burning to ash in planetfall, he raised his ethereal wings at once, wrapping them around himself and the form of The Doctor. Crowley closed his eyes tight as they plummeted to Earth._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next episode: coming soon... (and this time, I mean it)!


End file.
